How Do you Measure?
by electrakitty74
Summary: Collins looks back on his relationship with Angel. Written for speedrent, challenge 63, a first person account of love, loss, and friendship. Post RENT includes some swearing :


"Time heals all wounds . . ." Some wit decided to tack that to my door today. I threw it away. It's bullshit. Time doesn't heal shit. Days go by and the pain just seems to get worse. One day she was here, laughing with me, playing in the park, dancing on the table, the next she was gone.

She was my first, my only love. How can I ever have another after her? No one will ever measure up. No one can.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. Sounds like I'm starting my memoirs, and maybe I am. Where we met, when we met, feels like the beginning of my life. I had just gotten back from an awful semester at MIT which culminated in my being fired for whoops, accidentally on purpose blowing up all the computers on campus. Uh-oh. It was, I realize now, just my way of acting up, because I was bored there. I was bored with my life. I know now that my life hadn't started yet. Anyway, I digress a little. Forgive me, I do that a lot. I returned to New York, having been a semester in Boston. I was supposed to stay with my friends Mark and Roger. Their building is pretty "ghettra", as Mimi says, and the only way to get in without someone coming down to get you is to have the key thrown down to you. So, Mark threw me the key. Just as he disappeared from the fire escape, three guys jumped on me and took all my stuff, beating the shit out of me in the process. I sat alone in that dark alleyway, feeling sorry for myself, sure my life was over and feeling weak from blood loss and bruises. Just as I was about to black out, I saw the face of an Angel. Literally. My sweet, street drummer boy, Angel. He pulled me up, made me walk it off, took me back to his place, fed me, cleaned me up, and began my life. We fell in love that night. I wasn't sure, never having been in love before, but he was certain. He told me later that he knew he loved me the moment I spoke to him. He was a fucking romantic. _She_ was a fucking romantic.

We moved around a lot; sometimes we lived in a tent in a tent city, sometimes we squatted in an actual apartment, from time to time there was running water. Some nights we slept together on the street, fingers intertwined. On one notable occasion, Angel managed to talk us into a suite at the Plaza. I'm not sure I want to know how she did it, but we stayed there in high style, eating room service for nearly a month. Wherever we went though, whatever our fortune, we did it together. Sometimes I think our illness was a gift. It made us realize, like so few do, exactly how fleeting the time we had together was, how we had no time to take for granted. I guess I didn't realize how little time she actually had.

10 beautiful months she and I had together. Not even a year. In that time, we lived every day to the fullest. She liked holidays the best though. No, let me take that back. She _lived_ for holidays. All the old standards, and then a few she made up.

We had Christmas Eve together first. Once we got home from Maureen's protest and partying at the Life, more than a little drunk, we kissed and cuddled all night long. The next morning, we celebrated Christmas. It was a simple affair, just the two of us, still getting to know one another. We didn't have time or money for gifts, but we did decorate the tree together. As it turns out, it was a family tradition for her to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve and she hadn't gotten around to it before we met. So we did it together Christmas morning. Once it was all sparkling and to her liking, we made love for the first time under that tree. It was a bit awkward, I'll admit. We both had pine needles in unfortunate places, but I certainly did not mind, and if she did, she never mentioned it.

New Year's came next. We got all dressed up in our best for a "break-in party." She decided she wanted to be Pussy Galore. I guess that made me James Bond by default. I nearly lost my mind when I saw her dress . . . Girl had taken apart a shower curtain and a bunch of magazines and made herself a dress which earned her jealous looks all night long. And, since we were breaking back into Mark and Roger's place after our former friend Benny evicted them, she brought along a blowtorch. She was, after all, a Boy Scout once. And a Brownie, until some brat got scared.

After that, of course, was Valentine's Day. Oooh, she was like a kid in a candy store that day. I came home to the shitty little squat we were living in at the time to find her covered from head to toe in glitter and very little else. The whole place was decked out in hearts and flowers, garland and glitter. She was wearing red satin panties, a headband with hearts, killer red heels (she later called them her "come fuck me" shoes), and using some red and white heart garland as a boa. She danced for me, not letting me touch her, then she sat in my lap and fed me chocolates, kissing me between each to "share" them. After that, she stripped me naked and sat in my lap and we had a conversation entirely in those awful chalky little heart candies, feeding them to each other. It was fun. Then, of course, we woke whatever neighbors were around. What a night!

St Patrick's Day came next. She dressed completely in green and made me take her to the Life Café for green beer, forcing me to wear a t-shirt which read "Kiss me, I'm Irish." Every so often, she'd read my shirt aloud, and kiss me long and hard. That night, we came home drunk as lords (and ladies), made love, and fell asleep on the sofa.

Easter . . . She wore bunny ears, a tight white sweater, a full pink polka-dotted skirt with a . . . what do you call it? A crinoline (She made me memorize the word. It's that full fluffy thing kinda like a tutu that goes under a skirt to make it stay poufy) underneath, and white tights. On the skirt, she had a big old white pom pon for a tail. She had also painted the tip of her nose pink and had drawn whiskers on her face with eyeliner. From time to time she hopped around the apartment finding little gifts she'd hidden for me. Her final gift made me blush, but that didn't stop us from putting it to good use.

It was a long time between major holidays then, so we just spent every day celebrating each other, just as we always did. From time to time I would come home to find that she'd done . . . something or other to wherever we were living at the time to make herself or me happy. One day, she had decorated the whole apartment with condoms. I didn't ask what holiday it was for, we just used as many of them as we could that night. I suspect that was the idea.

Normally, I took another job waiting tables or something during summer vacation, but something told me that this summer would be best spent only with her. I did teach one class in summer session, but only to afford the little studio which we finally rented over a deli in the East Village. Neither of us wanted to admit that it was to be our final home together, but her health could no longer afford sleeping someplace different every night, and I didn't want her living outdoors ever again.

On Father's Day, I came home to find her drunk, dressed in men's clothing, crying in the middle of the floor. No words were needed. I carried her to the bed and held her all night. The next morning she tried to explain, but I kissed away all of her useless words and wished I could take the pain too.

Her birthday was quite the affair, lasting a full 24 hours. We started off at midnight. I kissed her and wished her a happy birthday, and then we made love no fewer than four times, and stayed up until dawn, kissing and cuddling. We slept in each other's arms for a couple of hours, then got up to join our friends for a huge party at the Life. The manager was hardly pleased to see us, as usual, but he tolerated our nonsense, especially since Joanne always left great tips. Mimi and Maureen had set up a little birthday skit for my Angel, Mimi dressed as Angel, and Maureen as me, reenacting the highlights of our relationship thus far. We all laughed when Maureen pantomimed kicking her own ass in the alleyway, as Mimi pretended to be sweating to death in the Pussy Galore costume, and as Maureen carried Mimi around the stage, nearly dropping her in the process. When they were finished, no one clapped louder than my Angel. Her eyes were so bright and happy, I blessed Maureen and Mimi and their friendship. Angel kissed and hugged them both tight at the end.

By July fourth, her energy seemed to be waning somewhat. She tried to keep her sickness from me though. I should have suspected that the little colds she kept getting were more serious than she let on. She always tried her best to keep her spirits up, no matter how hard it proved to be. On that Fourth of July, she dressed in red, white and blue, spangled with rhinestones and sequins and wearing a bright tinsel wig. We played with sparklers with our friends all day in the park and watched fireworks together all night long.

The next couple of months in our new place were happy ones, to be sure, but more often than not, I would come home from my few hours of teaching to find her already in bed, or listlessly reading a magazine on the ratty old sofa. Some afternoons I would sit with her on the couch, turning pages for her, talking about the articles, or just stroking her hair and holding her in bed. I worried a lot about how much weight she was losing. By my birthday at the end of August, I could easily carry her from the sofa to the bed. We celebrated my birthday together quietly. The guys brought over some food and alcohol and we all ate and drank together. Angel spent a lot of time snuggled in my arms. That was how she liked it. She didn't eat much of my birthday dinner, just sat in my lap and smiled and laughed with all of our friends.

Her pretty clothes were sadly a thing of the past. Most days were spent in loose-fitting sweatpants. Even they started to fall off of her by the middle of August and she sat on the sofa, quietly taking them in without mentioning it. Strangely, she never seemed depressed, just tired and usually cold. The sparkle never left her eyes until her very last minutes.

In September, school started again. I taught for the first couple of weeks of the semester, then her health took a turn for the worst and I never looked back. I didn't write a resignation, didn't call, and never showed up in my office at NYU again. I don't know what happened to my students, my classes, any of my stuff. I didn't care. I just knew that she needed me. She said she couldn't get comfortable unless I was there. I wanted her to be comfortable. Her latest test results had shown that her T-cells were dangerously low. I knew exactly what that meant, and so did she.

October was hell. She cried almost every night, unable to sleep, unable to eat, she lost weight dangerously quickly. By the seventeenth, I carried my Angel to the subway station, in my arms, like a baby. Her weight was almost nothing in my arms. She hadn't eaten in three days; she had barely drunk even water, and what she had taken in had come right back up. She was badly dehydrated and needed IV fluids. I knew she didn't want medical care, but she knew as well as I did that going to the hospital would mean the difference between a slow painful death and at least a little more time happy and together. She worried about how we were going to pay for the hospital, but I had been putting a little away for just this occurrence. I knew my pathetic health insurance wasn't going to cover her, even if I did still have any. As it turned out, my savings was gone in less than a week. I never told her. By the twentieth, she was feeling so much better; all of our friends came to visit us. Joanne quietly took me into the hallway and slipped me a brown paper bag, containing two small boxes, which I had asked her to buy for me. She introduced me to her friend, Susan, a judge. I greeted her with a hug and we all went to see my shining Angel. I snuggled her into my arms and asked her a question softly into her ear, with all our friends watching. The question. Her eyes lit up and she was my old Angel again, just for that one instant. The one who had bounded across the room in her "come fuck me" shoes, who had sat in my lap, plying me with kisses to get her way, who played pranks on the doorman at the Plaza. Overwhelmed, unable to speak, she just nodded. I pulled out the bag with the rings Joanne had given me, and quietly, illegally, in front of all of our friends, Susan married us.

A little more than a week we spent as husband and . . . well, husband, but they were no less treasured than the previous nine and a half months had been. On the twenty sixth I knew I needed to never leave her side again. I wouldn't leave when visiting hours were up (Hell, I had refused to leave just about as soon as she took up full-time residence in the hospital, the nurses all seemed to understand), I slept by her side, either in the bed or in the uncomfortable chair nearby, holding her hand, whichever she wanted. I refused to leave her room, even to eat. Mark and Mimi began bringing me food, worried about how much weight I was losing. I barely noticed.

On the night of the twenty eighth, she was awake, alert, and even eating a little. We talked and talked about all of our adventures, all of our friends, things we did together, things we still wanted to do. She talked like she'd be out of the hospital in no time. I played along, though I knew better. She did too; it was just her way, to pretend everything was going to be fine. That night, I snuggled into bed with her, told her again and again how much I loved her, pressed a hundred kisses to her face, and we went to sleep, in each other's arms. Early the next morning (I have no idea what time it was, I didn't care); I awoke when she softly spoke my name. I looked in her eyes and saw what I never wanted to see; it was time. She knew it and was at peace with it. She needed for me to be too. I whispered that I loved her, that it was ok with me if she left me, that I would miss her and always love her. I whispered a thousand things to her, things I never thought I'd be lucky enough to feel, let alone express, and I told her to go, whispered in a litany (gohoneyiloveyou illalwaysloveyou pleasejustgoiloveyousomuch) between sobs. She snuggled down into my arms. I pulled her close; trying to delay what I knew was inevitable. With one exhalation of breath, it was over. I could still feel her heart beating weakly and irregularly against my chest. It was as if my own heart was trying to keep hers going. For the first time in a long time, I prayed; alternately terrified and hopeful that she would not breathe again. After what seemed like forever, but in actuality was only five or six heartbeats, she died in my arms. Her heart stopped altogether, and I was left with only her body. My darling was gone. I stopped crying then. I felt nothing, only numbness for what seemed like forever, but was probably just over a minute or two. My mind shut down entirely, it was almost as if I'd ceased to be. I rocked her mindlessly, as if she could still feel it, then suddenly it all hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. I wailed, I cried, I sobbed, feeling like I could go on for days, weeks, forever. In a few minutes I quieted, out of energy. I tilted her face up and took what I felt would be my last look at it. There was an expression of such peace there, and, yes, a smile on her lips. My girl died happy.

We buried her on Halloween, a fitting tribute to her, I thought. Mimi brought over her last year's Halloween costume to bury her in. I cried when I saw her in the Tinkerbell costume. Wearing a short soft green dress and tights, her blonde wig, and sparkly fairy wings, she truly did look like an angel, even though her once luminous soft skin was marred by lesions. I kissed her one last time before they closed the casket, whispering to her that I was sorry I'd never had time to give her all one thousand kisses I'd promised, but that I'd see her again soon and we'd start up again just where we'd left off.


End file.
